The invention relates generally to image display techniques and in particular to the display of multiple analyses in conjunction with images.
Various technical fields engage in some form of image evaluation and analysis for monitoring or diagnostic purposes. For example, medical imaging technologies produce various types of diagnostic images which a doctor or radiologist may review for the presence of identifiable features of diagnostic significance, such as lesions, calcifications, nodules, and so forth. Similarly, in other fields, other features may be of interest. For example, non-invasive imaging of package and baggage contents, analysis of satellite image data, evaluation of astronomical and geological image data and others may similarly be reviewed to identify and classify recognizable features. With the development of digital imaging and image processing techniques, the quantity of image data requiring analysis in many of these technical fields has increased substantially.
The increased amount of available image data may require a large number of trained human technologists to process the data. Because the number of qualified technologists available at a given time may be limited, computer implemented techniques may be employed to provide valuable assistance and timesavings to the reviewing technologists. For example, computer assisted detection and/or diagnosis (CAD) algorithms have been developed to supplement and assist review and analysis of many types of image data, including medical image data. In addition, in some contexts, such as the review of medical image data, more than one independent assessment and analysis of a set of image data may be desirable to improve accuracy and to assure quality control. It may, however, be difficult to intuitively and easily combine the separate independent readings from different technologists or computerized routines into a final form that may be easily and quickly reviewed.
It is, therefore, desirable to provide an efficient and improved user interface allowing a reviewer to quickly and easily view the separate and combined analysis results generated by different readers and/or computer implemented routines.